Govt ignores polio in remote provinces
Tb. Arie Rukmantara, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Despite the success of the recent third round of polio vaccinations, the government has shown little commitment to boosting low vaccination rates in the remote provinces of Papua, West Irian and North Maluku.
"We actually want to vaccinate all the children in those areas, but they are difficult to reach ... In my personal opinion, I don't think polio exists there anyway," Minister of Health Siti Fadilah Supari said late last week after delivering the third polio vaccination report.
Siti said she was optimistic the areas were disease free because she had received no reports of polio there.
"It just so happens, that there are no polio patients in Papua, nor Yahukimo regency, which recently reported famine cases. Children are running around healthily there," she said.
According to Ministry of Health data, there were 295 cases of polio from April to December in 10 of the country's 33 provinces -- Banten with 161 cases, West Java (59), Lampung (25), Central Java (20), North Sumatra (10), South Sumatra (5), East Java (5), Jakarta (4), Aceh (3) and Riau (3).
During the last vaccination program in November, these 10 provinces are estimated to have vaccinated between 90 percent and 100 percent of at-risk children.
However, the ministry report said North Maluku could only vaccinate 86.4 percent of its 84,190 targeted children, with West Irian at 73.8 percent of 64,594 recorded children and Papua a mere 50.3 percent of 143,918 children.
Siti said it would be difficult for the polio virus to spread to these remote provinces because they were extremely difficult to reach.
"It is less likely that the polio virus would arrive there. People have to struggle to the death to reach these areas. Even a helicopter cannot take us to some of the remote villages in these provinces," she said.
If the government wanted to boost the vaccination rates in these areas, Siti said the polio eradication team would need its transportation budget increased. The government, in line with a recommendation of the World Health Organization (WHO), plans to launch two additional nationwide polio vaccination programs in January and February next year in a bid to eradicate the crippling disease by March 2006.
"To hire a plane with six passengers for a trip to remote areas in Papua will cost you Rp 30 million," Siti said.
WHO Indonesia country representative Georg Peterson said while polio had not yet been found in many provinces, this should not be a reason to leave children under five unvaccinated.
"For remote areas, the routine vaccinations of newborn babies should be strengthened," he told The Jakarta Post.
The chairman of the Indonesian Health Consumer Empowerment Foundation, Marius Widjajarta, dismissed Siti's argument, saying that the virus could travel anywhere, even to the most remote areas on the planet.
"The Constitution says that it is our citizens' right, including the Moluccans' and Papuans' right, to live a healthy life. Therefore, the government will have to work hard to at least vaccinate 90 percent of the children there," he said.
The country's latest polio outbreak came after it was free of the disease for about 10 years. Some health experts believe the virus spread to Indonesia from northern Nigeria, a country that still has polio.
To achieve the 90-percent vaccination target, Marius urged the government to enable staff at community health centers (Puskesmas), integrated health service posts (Posyandu) and new graduates of medicine schools to support vaccination drives in the three provinces.